This day in history
Every day is full of amazing anniversaries, ancient and modern! As well as today, you can also look at any other day of the year - click the arrows to select the month, then click a number to select the day.
4 July
Events
- 1054: A bright new star, visible in daylight, appears in the constellation Taurus. The supernova is observed in China and Korea, and is recorded in rock paintings in southwestern America.
- 1159: Wadysaw II, the former grand prince of Poland, dies; the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa has his sons restored to Silesia, so attaching it to German interests.
- 1652: The forces of Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Cond, massacre the Fronde parliamentary deputies. This discredits the new government and creates a desire for peace in the civil war.
- 1776: The American Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson with revisions by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, is approved by the Continental Congress. It announces the separation of the 13 North American British colonies from Britain.
- 1784: The Habsburg monarch and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II of Austria repeals the constitution of Hungary as part of his campaign to create a unified Habsburg empire and to break the power of the local Hungarian nobility.
- 1866: Emperor Napoleon III of France announces the cession of the Italian state of Venice by Austria following the Austrian defeat in the Seven Weeks' War with Prussia, as agreed in the treaty between Prussia and Austria of 12 June.
- 1874: The St Louis Bridge over the Mississippi River at St Louis, Missouri, is officially opened. Built by US engineer James Buchanan Eads, it consists of three hollow-steel arch trusses each over 150 m/500 ft long, making it the longest bridge in the world. A landmark in engineering, the arches are cantilevered so they can be raised, the foundations are planted to record depths of 30 m/100 ft, and it pioneers the use of structural steel.
- 1903: Honolulu, USA, and Manila in the Philippines are linked by undersea cable. US president Theodore Roosevelt inaugurates transpacific communications by sending a message around the world via San Francisco, Honolulu, and Manila. It takes 12 minutes.
- 1910: The black American boxer Jack Johnson retains the world heavyweight title, beating the former champion Jim Jeffries of the USA in 15 rounds in Reno, Nevada, USA. Disturbances arising from Johnson's victory lead to the deaths of 10 people in 7 US cities, and a film of the fight is not shown in many cities for fear of triggering race riots.
- 1919: President Jos Pardo of Peru is overthrown and is succeeded by the reforming Augusto Legua on 24 August.
- 1957: Vyacheslav Molotov, Dmitri Shepilov, and Georgi Malenkov are expelled from the presidium of the Soviet Central Committee of the Communist Party as Nikita Khrushchev consolidates his power.
- 1978: Scientists at the Princeton Large Torus test reactor achieve a temperature of 54 million K/60 millionF, and maintain it for one-twentieth of a second. It is hailed as a breakthrough for nuclear fusion.
- 1986: The Statue of Liberty in New York City is reopened by US president Ronald Reagan in the presence of President Franois Mitterrand of France, following refurbishment in celebration of its 100th birthday.
- 1997: The US spacecraft Mars Pathfinder lands on Mars. Two days later the probe's rover Sojourner, a six-wheeled vehicle that is controlled by an Earth-based operator, begins to explore the area around the spacecraft.
- 1998: Astronomers from the University of Hawaii discover the first asteroid entirely within the Earth's orbit; it is 40 m/130 ft in diameter.
- 1999: In a meeting with US president Bill Clinton, Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif pledges to restore the line of ceasefire between Pakistani and Indian forces in the disputed region of Kashmir. Muslim forces, however, vow to continue fighting, and the Indian government rejects foreign intervention in solving the crisis.
- 2004: Greece is the unexpected winner of football's 2004 European Championship, beating the host country Portugal 10 in the final in Lisbon.
Births and Deaths
- Giuseppe Garibaldi
1807: Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian soldier whose conquest of Sicily and Naples helps to unify Italy, born in Nice, France (1882). - Thomas Jefferson
1826: Thomas Jefferson, third president of the USA 180109, a Democratic-Republican, dies in Monticello, Virginia (83). - Louis B Mayer
1885: Louis B Mayer, US film executive, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) 192448, born in Minsk, Russia (1957). - Louis Armstrong
1900: Louis Armstrong, US jazz trumpeter, composer, and band leader, born in New Orleans, Louisiana (1971). - Marie Curie
1934: Marie Curie (born Skodowska), Polish-born French physicist who, with her husband Pierre Curie, discovered polonium and radium, and who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 and for Chemistry in 1911, dies near Sallanches, France (66).
Data provided by Helicon Publishing
